Protectors of This Land
Title: Protectors of This LandAuthor: forgottenloverRecipient: matchstickFandom: Final Fantasy IXCharacters: AlexanderWordcount: 554Rating: GPrompt: Knights- AlexanderDisclaimer: Squeenix owns FFIX, not IWarnings: None I can think ofNote: This is written for gen_challenge

The soldiers that lived in this land were beautiful, fierce, and astoundingly loyal to the royal family.

Watching them day after day, night after night, as decades passed and people who should never rule rose to the throne, he was, if nothing else, intrigued by the warriors that served as the most basic sort of protection for the people of his city.

He had not been at rest as they would assumed that he had been. No, instead he was more in a meditative place, aware and quiet, knowing that one of the true rulers of this city would, if they truly needed him, reach out and bring him forward in defense of their city. If called, he would drive away their enemies in a way that only his power would allow.

The family was named after him, and the girl from another place, another time, was so much closer to being a proper ruler than the one who had been before her. The one she called mother was so far removed from the Queens who had once graced his halls that really, it was a sham that she had so been called a lady by his people.

Still, it was not his place to pass judgement here. He would not come for that queen, only for the girl she had chosen as her princess.

Her warriors were aware not of the fallacy in their queen, had not the experience of many ages to alert them to all things wrong, and even the finest of those lady warriors was unaware of that which she was so fiercely protecting. It was something to admire, not something to begrudge, that dedication, and he was only relieved when she learned where her confidences ought to have been placed and acted on it thereafter.

The woman soldiers weren't the only ones that reigned in this land. They weren't the only defense and certainly weren't of the only gender that knew how to battle. While many men tended to home, hearth, and acted as shopkeepers, others fought and learned to be as their female counterparts had long since been taught they could.

They were rarer, of course. Men were not fighters, were not as fierce, and had no motherly instincts to draw their protective instincts to the fore. They were fathers, caregivers, and those who chose to fight were to be respected for their choice, not taunted for it and looked down on.

His humans still had much to learn from the other races in this instance, for many, in many places, had realized the potential that rose from the other side of the coin, and still others had learned what balance was. His brothers and sisters, other eidolons, had shared these things with him as they had passed through his halls in the hands of the princess after she'd started her voyage.

While the words had so been interesting, the tales and descriptions fascinating, those places the others had been to were simply not his people. They were not the ones that he protected. Here was his place, and the knights of Alexandria, both male and female, were those he prized.

They would protect what needed protecting so that he would not be required to, and that was enough to keep his attention for a very long time.